Lavender (color)

The name comes from the flower of the lavender plant. Originally, the name lavender only meant the color of this flower. The color of the flower is still the standard for lavender but there are many other tones of light or medium violet now called lavender also.

The color of the flower can also be called floral lavender. Other shades of lavender can range in hue from pinkish purple through violet to blueish-indigo. They can also range from light and pale to medium and greyish shades.

By 1930, the book A Dictionary of Color[1] identified three major tones of lavender--[floral] lavender, lavender gray, and lavender blue, and in addition a fourth tone of lavender called old lavender (a dark lavender gray) (all four of these shades of lavender are shown below). By 1955, the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names[2] listed dozens of different shades of lavender.

The first recorded use of the word lavender as a color term in English was in 1705.[3]